Midwest Memo
Facades
by Alan Shultz

I've been watching a new house as it is being built in the old neighborhood. It's going to be a grand residence rich, but refined. Two and a half stories tall, long and rambling out in front, this fancy home is going to call out "look at me" in deep, resonant and refined tones.

Right now the construction site is surrounded by a tall, chain link fence. The fence was erected all around the perimeter of the job site when construction first commenced. I'm not certain who or what the fence is exactly meant to keep in or out. The fence makes the act of construction here seem slightly pretentious. And the need for the artificial distance maintained between the public and the job site, it seems phony. In the end, it's just going to be a house, just an expensive house.

This week the exterior brick work on the residence is the object of much activity. Rough, uneven slabs of what appears to be limestone is arranged, layered and mortared. As the brick walls ascend higher and higher, the heft and bulk of the home takes on its intended design and shape.

For many years I was ignorant of the many different forms of home construction. In those days, when I saw brick on the outside of a house I assumed that the structural walls of the house were constructed of that brick. I believed the brick was indeed a weight-bearing component of the building.

I learned the truth about brick construction from a tuckpointer working on the first brick house my wife and I ever owned. I must have said something that exposed my confusion over what the brick was exactly doing for us.

"No, no," the fellow said to me, "this brick doesn't hold anything up, it's just all facade, just for looks."

And that was the moment I learned the difference between brick and frame construction. Our house was a frame structure with a brick wall for a facade. Aside from keeping the weather and the bugs on the outside, our brick exterior represented mostly a choice of covering, a choice instead of other options like siding or stucco or shingles.

Facades, it turns out, are most often a matter of choice.

A few years back, my wife and I spent a delightful afternoon with a pastry chef in her bakery. The object of this sugary sweet meeting was to choose the design and type of cake for our daughter's upcoming wedding.

Up until that particular afternoon, I was ignorant of the vast array of choices when it came to the kind and type of wedding cakes. However, I soon got up to speed and rapt attention when I realized the financial investment all this spun sugar represented.

After much tasting, discussion and fork licking, the cake flavor and the filling decisions were made. But the frosting proved to be a tougher pick. There was a tradeoff associated with the various frosting choices. The best tasting frosting did not produce the most luscious looking facade. The best looking frosting was a bit, well, let's say it was resilient.

In the end we went with looks, a facade of frosting that caught the eye, but not necessarily the taste buds.

I suppose what intrigues me about facades is the element of choice.

Every day we choose to present our own facade. Sometimes there's substance there, sometimes it's all just looks. There are days when our outsides are more sweet, other days more polish.

The trick is simple for those of us staring in from outside the chain link fence. Know what you're looking at. And at the dessert table, I recommend a little discretion when secretly sampling the frosting.